For the second week in a row, the Russellville Cyclones suffered a last-second heartbreak at the hands of a pack of Bulldogs.

Last week, Springdale drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer to steal a 7A/6A-Central Conference basketball win from the Cyclones. Tuesday night, the Greenwood Bulldogs ralled in the fourth period and escaped RHS with a 72-71 two-overtime league win.

“I kept telling the boys we were just one rebound away from stealing the win,” Russellville head coach Codey Mann said after the game. “We keep missing shots and they keep getting the rebound, and then they’re out there playing the foul game again. One rebound and we had a chance to put the game away.”

Greenwood overcame a 46-37 deficit in the fourth period to tie the game 56-56 at the buzzer. The Cyclones showed their inexperience and youth in the waning moments of regulation with confusion under the goal.

“I looked out there on the court, and we had four sophomores out there with Dakota Young. With all the youth out there, tight games like this at the high school level isn’t something they’ve experienced,” Mann said. “Look at all our guards. All we have are sophomores and juniors. For every single one of them, it’s their first time to experience things like this.”

“As rough as it got out there, it was great experience,” the coach said. “We’ve got tough kids and they’ve responded well. They responded well to the loss against Springdale, and they’ll respond well to this. We’ve just go to come out fighting and get ready for Catholic on Friday.”

The Cyclones outscored the Bulldogs 13-8 in the first period and carried that lead into the third quarter. Both teams netted seven apiece in the second period, then they scored 16 and traded the lead six times in the third. Russellville’s Kentrel Scott, Dakota Young and Co-Chese Temple-Laws netted back-to-back layups to give the Cyclones their 36-31 lead going into the fourth.

Controversy surrounded a free-throw in the first over-time. Confusion on whether an official had signaled a 1-for-1 free-throw permeated both the Russellville squad and the Bulldogs. Several Greenwood players jumped for the rebound after the first shot was made, but whistles blew and another foul shot was awarded to the Bulldogs.

“When he first made the call to our scorekeeper, I believe he told her it was a 1-for-1,” Mann said. “I think he told the players that, too. Two Greenwood kids went for the rebound. They wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t. When I asked the umpire about it he couldn’t give me a good reason to change it to a two-pointer, but sometimes in the game of basketball this is kind of how things work and how things play out.”

It would be easy to point a finger at that free-throw as the culprit of the Cyclones’ 1-point loss. Mann said he prefers to give credit to who deserves it.

“You’ve got to give Greenwood credit,” he said. “They stretched out the game as long as possible and eventually found a way to win.”

Russellville had the lead with 18 seconds left in the second overtime, but Greenwood scored a jumper in front of a thunderous Cyclone Gymnasium crowd and time ran out out for Russellville.

Andy Campbell led the Cyclones in scoring with 15 points, followed by Young who pitched in 14. Tony Jones added 12 points and Jalen Curtis scored nine.

“I’m really proud of the boys,” Mann said. “They played extremely hard for me. A break here and a break there and it could have been a different ballgame. You hate to learn from the game when you lose. You prefer to learn when you win. But we’ll use this to our advantage and we’ll get better from it.”

Russellville will continue conference play at Little Rock Catholic on Friday.